When you say you did a thing,

and you’re scared you did the wrong thing, 
or did the right one wrong,

and you feel a little guilty,
but proud, excited,
and so happy,

though sometimes you feel angry, 
and other times bittersweet,
occasionally sad for others,

but only sad for yourself until you remember that what you miss
only hurt anyways,

so you just feel generally tired by having had to lose
what you never should have had to,

so you pause, and you heal, and you learn, and you grow,
and you wait, until you stop 
thinking of this process as resting, recovering,

and start thinking of it more as riding 
out the tremors you created 
when you shifted your own tectonic plates 
and became your own earthquake,

then you will name this grief.